SoTL Showcase
Sessions
Open Poster Session
This study explores how nature journaling can serve as a brief "tech detox" experience for elementary preservice teachers. Through an outdoor, device-free journaling activity paired with structured reflection, participants examined their relationships with tech and engaged in technoskeptical thinking about technology's impacts on well-being and society. The project investigates how embodied experiences in nature can help future teachers make more intentional decisions about tech use in the classroom.
Jeff Radloff, Rebecca Lesnefsky, Jacob Pleasants, Sage Andersen, Beth Klein, Cody Harrington, & Madi Morris. (2026, October 15). Nature Journaling as a Technology Detox: Fostering Critical Reflections on Technology in Teacher Education [Conference session]. SoTL Showcase, SUNY Cortland.
This project examines what preservice elementary teachers do when asked to design science lessons around justice issues in their own communities. Students in my science methods course wrote lesson plans that integrated Social Justice Science Issues (SJSI) within a Justice-Centered Science Pedagogy (JCSP) framework.Students anchored science learning in local justice issues, but integration was uneven across the lesson sequence. These patterns show where a methods course needs to offer more support. Preservice teachers need structured practice reasoning about equity across a whole lesson, along with guidance on the equity content they select.
Rebecca Lesnefsky & Jeffrey Radloff. (2026, October 15). How Preservice Teachers Plan Science Lessons Around Local Justice Issues [Conference session]. SoTL Showcase, SUNY Cortland.
AI use has become normalized among students, and professors are grappling with how to ensure student learning in such a landscape, with an emphasis on policing AI use through reactive strategies or the redesign of course material. Neither approach, however, addresses the even deeper problem that sets the foundation for AI use to complete assignments—why students are so willing to undermine their own learning. In the study, we will determine the effectiveness of early and explicit instruction on opportunity cost, motivation, fixed and growth mindset, and the importance of being a person of integrity on the behaviors and beliefs of students in classroom settings.
Samantha Applin & Miriam Barcus. (2026, October 15). A Proactive Approach to Student Learning and AI Misuse [Conference session]. SoTL Showcase, SUNY Cortland.
Curious about SoTL at Cortland? Have a SoTL project in progress or published? Join us for the SoTL Showcase, a casual poster session and round-table gathering celebrating the faculty across campus who are researching teaching and learning in their own classrooms.
Drop in whenever works for you to peruse posters, engage in round-table chats with presenters, and brainstorm collaborations with colleagues who share your curiosity. Projects at every stage are welcome, from early ideas to published studies. There will be plenty of space to mingle, and plenty of refreshments to make it your afternoon coffee and snack break.
Have a SoTL project in progress or published?
We'd love to feature it in the showcase! We're inviting faculty to share their classroom research, at any stage. This is an informal, low-stakes space, less a conference presentation and more a chance to share your work, get feedback, and meet potential collaborators. To be featured, submit the above form!
So...What is SoTL?
SoTL, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, is research where your classroom is your research site and your students are the participants. SoTL starts with something you notice in your teaching (an activity that seems to click, an assignment students consistently struggle with, a shift after a course redesign), turns it into a question, and uses evidence from your course to explore it.
SoTL draws on methods from every discipline, such as surveys, analysis of student work, reflections, focus groups, and comparisons across sections. And yes, you can publish it! You don't need to be an education researcher to do SoTL; you just need a question about your teaching that you care about.
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